


I Tell You I Love You...And I Know That You Can't

by WonderBoy



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 05x04, Angst, Because come on, F/M, Some Fluff, because i couldn't not do this, stiles visits lydia in the hospital
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 10:41:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4345418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderBoy/pseuds/WonderBoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A million other things should have been on her mind but all she could hear was Stiles as she laid there. </p><p>“See, that’s the problem you don’t care about getting hurt. But you know how I’ll feel? I’ll be devastated and if you die I will literally go out of my freaking mind.” </p><p>Stiles’s face reiterated that ten-fold. Like something shattered inside of him she watched devastation and confusion settle across his face as if he was lost, spinning out of control and didn’t know how to come back-didn’t know if he even wanted to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Tell You I Love You...And I Know That You Can't

**Author's Note:**

> I had to write something for this damn episode before it killed me.
> 
> And I suggest listening to Fistful of Love by Antony and the Johnsons while reading for a more fulfilling experience.

Lydia wakes up in an unfamiliar room and for a moment, she panics. It takes a few minutes of staring at the crisp white ceiling, and listening to the sadly familiar beeps and whirls of machines for her to realize where she is. She’s at the hospital. Again. She can’t even say the memories of the night previous come flooding back to her because they never left. Even when she was asleep the night’s events kept replaying in her mind. It was starting to feel like some kind of clichéd horror movie. If it wasn’t for searing pain in her side as she attempts to sit up, and the fact that she is once again in a hospital bed, she would almost entertain the idea that it _was_ a clichéd horror movie.

Her room is dark. Light from the hallway spills in through the crack in the door and the small window but it doesn’t do much in helping her see. She wants to know what time it is but if there’s a clock in her ICU room, she can’t see it. Another thing to add to her “Reasons to Hate the Hospital” List. Just once she would like to wake up not feeling disoriented and lost.

With a quiet huff Lydia settles back against the bed. She doesn’t feel tired. There’s a kind of exhaustion settled over her that she’s familiar with. It’s the kind of exhaustion that feels like it’s a part of her very DNA, like the marrow in her bones and the blood in her veins has been pumped full of this leaden feeling but its different from being tired. Being tired she could deal with, this kind of exhaustion didn’t ever seem to go away.

It didn’t help that her arm was asleep. Not that she had anything to do with her arms currently but it was just another inconvenience she could add to her growing list.

Mostly because she lacked anything else to do and didn’t feel as if she was going back to sleep any time soon, Lydia tried to raise her arm in an attempt to wake it. The limb didn’t move. A rush of panic washed over her. Was she paralyzed? She had been stabbed by a kanima for God’s sake. No, she had managed to sit up on her own, to turn her head and look around at her hospital room. She couldn’t be paralyzed. Squinting in the dark, Lydia tried to focus on her arm and see why she couldn’t move it. A head, thankfully one attached to a body, was on top of her arm, rendering it immobile.

Wincing as the stretch pulled her stiches, Lydia used her free arm to run her fingers through the hair of her guest. Lydia knew she shouldn’t be surprised but she still felt the breath catch in her throat as Stiles’s face came into focus. He wasn’t supposed to be there. Only family was supposed to be allowed in her room, family and officers there for questioning and/or protection purposes, and no matter how he liked to pretend, Stiles was neither. Melissa didn’t like to break any more rules than she absolutely had to dealing with all the supernatural chaos their pack brought into the hospital which meant, more than likely, Stiles had snuck in to visit her.

A rush of emotions came over Lydia as she felt Stiles’s steady breath against her skin. She couldn’t get his face out of her head. The worry, the fear that wreaked havoc over this beautiful boy’s face as he found her, bleeding across the floor of the sheriff’s station. Over _her_ beautiful boy’s face. It hurt her to see the expression there almost as much as the gaping wound in her side and yet she remembered a flood of warmth. If there had been any doubt about their relationship, any chance that feelings had changed, Stiles’s expression killed that. 

A million other things should have been on her mind but all she could hear was Stiles as she laid there.

“ _See, that’s the problem you don’t care about getting hurt. But you know how I’ll feel? I’ll be devastated and if you die I will literally go out of my freaking mind.”_

Stiles’s face reiterated that ten-fold. Like something shattered inside of him she watched devastation and confusion settle across his face as if he was lost, spinning out of control and didn’t know how to come back-didn’t know if he even wanted to. There had only been one other time Lydia had seen something close to that expression and it was when Stiles had a panic attack. And she certainly wasn’t in any position to help him hold his breath, bleeding out on the floor as she was. So she did the next best thing.

She smiled the best smile she could manage.

“Stiles, I’m fine.” The lie rolled off her tongue surprisingly easy. Scott needed Stiles’s help. Tracy needed him. The sheriff needed him. Lydia Martin could wait, could manage without him there. She always did.

Lydia didn’t realize she was crying until Stiles woke up, blinking his big brown eyes that she loved so much and giving her a weak smile.

“Don’t cry, Lyds.”

An ugly, choked laugh wracked through her. “I thought I was beautiful when I cried.”

“You are. Always.” Slowly, his back probably stiff from bending over the side of the hospital bed as it had been, Stiles sat up. “Doesn’t mean you should.” He yawned, blinking sleep and a few stray tears from his eyes. Finally Stiles leveled a focused look at her. Lydia could see the realization hit Stiles and he leapt to his feet, knocking the heavy chair he had been in back, nearly pushing it to the ground.

“You’re awake.” Stiles breathed. His hands hovered above her own, like he was afraid if he touched her she would disappear into the night. “You’re okay.”

“I told you I was fine, Stilinski.” Lydia wasn’t really sure how convincing she was but she had to try. She had to make sure her devastated, beautiful boy knew he didn’t need to be devastated any longer.

It was like hearing Lydia sass him back, having her talk back to him as if absolutely nothing had changed broke something in Stiles. Big, huge crocodile tears he’d probably deny shedding tomorrow rolled down Stiles’s cheek as he pushed down the railing on the side of the bed and climbed in beside her. Handling her as if she could shatter at any moment, Stiles pulled her close to him. Lydia buried her face in the crook of his shoulder as he pressed his own against her hair. She could feel his shaky breaths as he breathed her in, cupping the back of her head against him like he was afraid she would try to pull away. She had no intention of that. Instead Lydia fisted her hands in the back of his shirt and let her best friend hold her.

“You’re okay.” Stiles whispered into her hair, over and over until she was worried he really was broken. “You’re alive.”

It felt as if they sat there holding each other for an hour, maybe more but it had to come to an end. Eventually there were no more tears for Lydia to shed and as they stopped, her senses came back to her. Stiles was her best friend, the only one she had left since Allison’s death, but he wasn’t her’s to hold like this. He wasn’t even supposed to be there with her to begin with. Lydia pulled away from the embrace. For a brief moment, Stiles’s hold on her tightened, like he wasn’t willing to let go and Lydia savored the feeling, fleeting though it was.

“You’re not supposed to be here.” Was all Lydia could bring herself to say.

“I had to make sure you were okay.”

“Stiles, I’m fine.”

She could see the trepidation in his eyes as he watched her. He didn’t believe her now any more than he did at the station.

_“Death doesn’t happen to you, Lydia. It happens to everyone around you. To all the people left standing at your funeral, trying to figure out how they’re gonna live the rest of their lives without you in it.”_

Lydia tried not to wince as the rest of Stiles’s speech came back to her. He was right. Of course he was. Over these past few months, Lydia had learned as well as anyone just how right Stiles was about that and a million other things. Lydia had wanted to calm Stiles, to help him look a little less devastated. Hopefully to help him realize that, at least today, there wasn’t death happening around him and for once he could relax. Instead Stiles stood up from her hospital bed and looked even more lost than he did at the station.

“I’m fine.” Lydia repeated because what else could she say?

Stiles was quiet as he brought her close one last time and pressed a kiss to her forehead, pouring his relief and fear into it all at once. When he pulled away, his hands shook. Stiles mumbled something she wasn’t sure could be heard, even with advanced werewolf hearing and left her room without another word, without another look.

Alone, just as she had intended, Lydia felt cold.

**Author's Note:**

> At least one of my Stydia fics made it to completion


End file.
